As a GSA Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) contractor, one of the most critical tasks in ensuring that your contract remains compliant is to report your GSA sales and to remit the Industrial Funding Fee (IFF). GSA contractors are required to report their sales through the Federal Acquisition Service (FAS) Sales Reporting Portal (SRP) on a quarterly or monthly basis.
As part of sales reporting, GSA contractors are also required to identify and separate contract sales from non-contract sales, or government sales from non-government sales, so that the IFF may be properly calculated. Let’s cover what you need to know about “spring cleaning” your GSA Schedule and keeping it compliant.
Before you start the reporting process, you will need to identify how often you are required to file a report. If your contract is subject to Transactional Data Reporting (TDR), you will be required to submit your reports every month. If you are subject to Commercial Sales Practices (CSP), then you will be required to report your sales every quarter.
A sales report must be submitted no later than 30 days after the close of each month (for TDR) or business quarter. Quarterly reports will be due January 30, April 30, July 30, and October 30.
It is important to remember that even if you did not have any sales for that reporting period, you’re still required file a sales report. The SRP is flexible in allowing contractors to define when an order becomes a sale. Sales may be reported at either the receipt of order, shipment or delivery, issuance of an invoice, or at the actual payment.
In order to determine if your contract is subject to TDR, you must log into the Sales Reporting Portal (SRP) using your FAS ID multi-factor authentication. This is the same identity management system that contractors can utilize to access other important GSA websites, such as: eOffer/eMod, GSA Advantage!, GSA Vendor Portal, eBuy, and the Mass Modification Portal.
After you sign in, you will be taken to the home page which displays your currently awarded GSA MAS contracts. Under “Current Reporting Frequency,” it will say “monthly” or “quarterly.” If it says monthly, this means that your contract is subject to TDR.
While going through the sales reporting process for the first time, one of the most difficult tasks is differentiating a GSA sale from a non-GSA sale. If you are selling a product or service on your GSA Schedule contract to an authorized GSA user at either contract prices or lower, the order could be considered a GSA sale.
Likewise, if you sell items that are not awarded on your GSA pricelist, it is considered to be an open market sale, and you do not need to report in the SRP. If you have been working on a contract with subcontractors, you also do not need to report these sales in the SRP, even if the end user is a government agency.
Here are some key indicators on how to distinguish between a GSA sale from a non-GSA sale:
If you still have any doubt as to whether your sale was a GSA sale or not, asking the ordering organization or your Administrative Contracting Officer for further clarifications may shed light on the whether the sale should be included in your sales report. Staying on top of your GSA sales and having a proper internal tracking system for them can also help you facilitate this process.
After you have determined when you need to file your sales report and how to determine what sales need to be reported, you’re ready start preparing your report.
Once you’ve logged into FAS SRP, select the “reporting” button. You can choose to enter your sales data either manually or via a template that you can download directly from the SRP. If you are subject to Commercial Sales Practices (CSP), you will need to report the total sales per Special Item Number (SIN). If you are subject to Transactional Data Reporting (TDR), the template requires 11 different pieces of information:
After you enter/upload your sales data, click “Submit Report.” The SRP will then calculate how much IFF you will have to pay. The IFF is a payment that is waged by customers in order to cover GSA’s cost of operating the Federal Supply Schedules (FSS) program.
The current rate of the IFF is 0.75 percent, and this rate is applied to the total sales within a respective month or quarter. The IFF is always included in the price that customer agencies pay the contractor when they are purchasing items from Multiple Award Schedule contractors.
It is important to note that the IFF does not need to be applied to sales that are not GSA sales. In order to pay the IFF, go to the “Payment” function and click “Make Payments.” After you pay the IFF, you are all set to go until the next reporting period.
Filing your sales report can be a confusing and lengthy process. If you don’t do it, you risk noncompliance and potentially losing your GSA Schedule. For more information on Transactional Data Reporting (TDR) and Commercial Sales Practices (CSP), check out our blog comparing the two methods.
We are here to help if you need assistance with your sales reporting, or if you have any questions about your GSA Schedule.